BCBusiness

24 BCBUSINESS JULY/AUGUST 2017 Long known for its natural surroundings, Vancouver is gaining a global reputation for another kind of ecosystem that helps young companies flourish by Marcie Good MATRIX Startup City V ancouver has some glowingly success- ful startup stories, including Slack, the fastest-growing business software of all time, Broadband.tv, the world's third-largest video streaming site, and Hootsuite Media Inc., maker of the most widely used social media management platform. Among those Douglas •rs is a growing cluster of promising saplings, nurtured by what a recent report calls a healthy environment. According to Startup Genome, a network that draws from global business data, surveys with thousands of company founders and research from organizations that support entrepreneurs, Metro Vancouver's startup ecosys- tem ranks 15th worldwide. The report is driven by one question: where does an early-stage startup stand the best chance of building a global success? Cities and regions are rated on such factors as company perfor- mance, access to funding, number of experi- enced engineers and market reach. "I think Vancouver has a very strong startup vibe compared to the rest of the country," says James Maynard, president of Wavefront, a Vancouver-based organization that helps young companies with early-stage development, growth and building international ties. "We might not have the scale; there's issues of availability of funding because of the size of the city and the nature of our business composition. But I think overall it's got a lot going for it." Vancouver, which beat the only other Canadian contender, Toronto-Waterloo, by one place, ranked last in the top 20 for the exit values of companies that have been acquired or gone public. (Not one over US$1 billion?) Maynard argues that exits aren't necessarily a good measure of success, though. "That's really a double-edged sword," he says. "Is it a good thing to have an ecosystem that helps companies get bought up instead of building head o—ces and delivering value back into the community? We need to create cohorts of companies that are not just focused on exits and returns, but also on that balance that you can drive •nancial returns and also drive for growth and be headquartered here in Vancouver." HOW VANCOUVER'S STARTUP ECOSYSTEM STACKS UP AGAINST THE REST OF THE WORLD (CITIES AND REGIONS ARE FROM A LIST OF 20) S IL IC ON VA L L E Y BE I JING BE RL IN S E AT T L E NE W Y ORK BO S T ON S H A NGH A I VA NC OU V E R LONDON T E L AV I V LO S A NGE L E S T ORON T O R A NK ING 1 4 7 10 2 5 8 15 3 6 9 16 R A NK ING R A NK ING R A NK ING P E RFORM A NC E 1 2 7 12 3 6 8 19 4 9 5 18 P E RFORM A NC E P E RFORM A NC E P E RFORM A NC E F UNDING 1 5 9 13 2 6 3 19 4 8 7 12 F UNDING F UNDING F UNDING M A RK E T RE A C H 1 19 6 14 3 12 10 7 2 4 15 5 M A RK E T RE A C H M A RK E T RE A C H M A RK E T RE A C H TA L E N T 2 8 5 3 7 4 9 15 10 11 14 2 0 TA L E N T TA L E N T TA L E N T S TA R T UP E X P E RIE NC E 1 2 10 6 4 4 13 15 5 7 11 18 S TA R T UP E X P E RIE NC E S TA R T UP E X P E RIE NC E S TA R T UP E X P E RIE NC E C I T Y C I T Y C I T Y C I T Y 0 NEW g 2 0 j -1 NEW g 3 j -1 j -6 g 1 j -2 g 3

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